Living at the intersection of Startup and Productivity. It’s busy!

Thanks for stopping by my site - you'll find me talking about startups, productivity, and a bit about what I do for a living. Much more interestingly, I often talk with knowledgeable people on these and other topics.

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(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Jamie Gaines has jumped into the microISV waters with his startup Zig Internet Solutions, launching PhotoCannon. PhotoCannon is a cross-platform Adobe AIR application that makes it easy to resize and send multiple pictures at once. (via email)

After a horrible time with a home grown ecommerce solution, then fixing the problem by switching to FastSpring, Hector Sosa of System Widgets has rebooted PainlessSVN Professional 1.0.1, resetting its 30 day trial so that customers can have another 30 days try it and offering a half-off sale until January 31, 2009. (via email)

Sohail Somani, announced the official beta of Worklog Assistant (WLA). WLA gives you hassle-free time tracking for the JIRA issue tracking system so you never have to enter worklogs manually again. (via email)

I announced the start of my next Apress book project, working title The Startup Success Guide. Thanks again for all the support here and here and keep those ideas on what I should cover coming!

Pat and I released Show #10 of the Startup Success Podcast. We interviewed Scott Hanselman and announced the show’s new Facebook Page, where you can critique our questions for upcoming show interviews, suggest people to interview and remind me to speak faster, this is 2009 already!

We’re especially looking for questions re the present and future of Delphi since we are interviewing Nick Hodges of Embarcadero Technologies. Thanks Zviki for your suggested questions! Who else has a question for Nick?

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

None found.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

The MicroISV Digest for the week ending December 29nd, 2008.(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Ron Mertens of Metalgrass has launched a new service for bloggers, marketers and people into online video in general: Video Alerts. The new service sends out email alerts when video you are interested in becomes available (Currently just YouTube) (Via email)

Vladimir Dubovoy of DimensionGears is looking for feedback on his site and his modeling program, TruePainter (via BOS)

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

None found.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

I just wanted to wish everyone reading the MicroISV Digest, and 47hats.com for that matter, a Happy New Year. I for one am so looking forward to it!

The MicroISV Digest for the week ending December 22nd, 2008. (posted a day late due to cavorting female elves.)

(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Gavin Bowman of Antair Games has launched a contest where you get to devour the losers: The Great Indie Bake Off 2008. The rules are simple: bake a dessert inspired by your game or app, post a photo of it and let Gavin know. (via email)

Torsten Uhlmann of Agynmix has launched Simidude, a cross platform drag and drop utility. with Simidude, you click and drag files, folders, urls, etc. between boxes regardless of OS. Very cool. (Via BOS)

Stephen Lombardo of Zetetic has released a major update to his product, Tempo Time Tracking service. Simple time tracking, powerful reporting and an iPhone interface. (via email)

I and Pat Foley released Startup Success Podcast Show #9 yesterday, wrapping up our three part interview with none other than Joel Spolsky. We’re making plans for 2009: what do you want more or less of?

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

David Allen’s long awaited new book, “Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life” comes out in the states Dec. 30. If you’ve got a better way of being productive than Getting Things Done, let me know. Otherwise, this book is definitely for you. I’ll be posting a review here once I digest (ahem) it and get a head start on everybody else.

(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Peter Štibraný has launched Foglyn, an Eclipse plugin which lets you edit your FogBugz cases within that IDE. (via email) He’s also looking for site feedback. (via BOS)

Thomas Holz’s microISV IT-Services has released version 2.05 of Easy2Sync for Outlook. Easy2Sync let’s you sync multiple copies of Outlook without using Microsoft Exchange Server; the new version includes a built-in spam filter. (via email)

Keith Alperin of Helium Foot Software has moved Highbrow out of beta to 1.0. Highbrow enables anyone to utilize each installed web browser more effectively on the Mac by eliminating the annoyances that arise from using multiple web browsers. With Highbrow, users will always get the browser that they want. (via email)

Dmitry Leskov, Excelsior LLC, has been selling Excelsior JET – a tool for Java programmers who want to accelerate development, protect their codebase and create professional deployments. He wanted readers of the microISV Digest to know that while a standard license costs between $1,200-4,500, Excelsior Jet through their Microbusiness Licensing Program is substantially less through the end of this year. (via email)

Not wasting any time, Steve Cholerton has moved DataClean – a cross platform utility for cleaning large amounts of data and writing it out in various formats – to 1.0

(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Gavin Bowman of Antair Games emailed that they’ve released their new iPhone game, Sneezies. Good going Gavin – and you can snatch up for now this game that rates an 11 on the 1 to 10 cuteness gauge for only 99 cents at iTunes. (via email)

Kristen Nicole and I released The Twitter Survival Guide. It’s an in-depth guide on how and why use Twitter to build your personal, microISV or startup online brand.

Keith Alperin of Helium Foot Software has released Highbrow 1.0 Public Beta. Highbrow enables anyone to utilize each installed web browser more effectively on the Mac by eliminating the annoyances that arise from using multiple web browsers. With Highbrow, users will always get the browser that they want. Beta until 12/15 when 1.0 will be released. (via email)

He’s at it again! – Steve Cholerton has released a preview version of Arten Science DataClean – a cross platform utility for cleaning large amounts of data and writing it out in various formats.

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

Paul Graham asks the question this month, do startups still need VCs? “Could VC be a Casualty of the Recession?“. In Paul’s words: “VCs and founders are like two components that used to be bolted together. Around 2000 the bolt was removed. Because the components have so far been subjected to the same forces, they still seem to be joined together, but really one is just resting on the other. A sharp impact would make them fly apart.” (pointed out by TechFlash’s John Cook.)

Show #7 of the Startup Success Podcast features the first of a three part interview with Joel Spolsky. This week Joel, Patrick and I talk about the “secret sauce” that makes Stack Overflow work. (iTunes link.)

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

Just when you thought maybe the economy is okay (2) …

Pownce, the Twitter-like microblogging startup, is shutting down Dec. 15th after being bought by Six Apart (makers of TypePad and Vox).

Federal bailouts, equity buys into banks and investment houses, liquidity infusions by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank, loan guarantees and economic stimulus checks now total $8.5 trillion, or an amount equal to about 60% of the annual U.S. gross domestic product, according to various estimates.

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

Just when you thought maybe the economy is okay… The U.S. Treasury rolled out the crash cart for Citigroup, adding another $20 billion injection to the $25 billion already kicked in, plus a FDIC guarantee on $306 billion worth of bad citibank assets. Wall Street loved it.

Further (mostly relevant) Reading

Lessons of Survival, From the Dot-Com Attic, and interesting post from the New York Times. “Many of the companies that survived the dot-com bust did so by ignoring the prevailing “Get Big Fast” business model, Mr. Kirsch explains. Get Big Fast said that an Internet company should identify a market early and grow as quickly as possible, to shut out all competitors.”

(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Ryo Shimizu, CEO of Toyko-based Ubiquitous Entertainment Inc., has released Zeptoliner, an easy-to-use outliner for the Apple iPhone. I met Ryo in Tokyo this summer – he’s part of a growing list of Japanese-based startups joining the global micro software vendor world.(via email).

News and Announcements

Zviki Cohen is looking for feedback on his new microISV site for nWire. nWire is an Eclipse plug-in which expedites Java development.(via BOS)

Dharmesh Shah’s Business of Software Conference talk is now online at here – and seven other videos of talks by the likes of Eric Sink, Jason Fried and Steve Johnson are up on the Business of Software Social Network site. (via BOS)

Show #4 of the Startup Success Podcast is up: in this show Pat and I talk to Microsoft’s Larry Gregory about the new BizSpark program and I interview Peldi Guilizzoni creator of Balsamiq Mockups, a great Adobe AIR app.

Speaking of BizSpark – Microsoft’s new better than Empower program for startups – you’ll find more info in these BOS posts here and here, and my take here and here. If you’re interested in getting what BizSpark has to offer, email me. I’m a BizSpark Network Partner.

Relevant Blog Posts, Videos and Articles

All and all, a quiet week. I think it’s a combination of post-election fatigue and pre-Inauguration hopes…

(If you have an announcement of interest to your fellow microISV, indies or startups, please email me at bob.walsh@47hats.com with the word digest in the subject.)

News and Announcements

Thomas Holz (Easy2Sync) has started ISV Tube – new blog, collecting videos of interest to microISVs and startups. Mostly from conferences, but some other good videos, too. (via email)

Steve Cholerton – Arten Science – has released Pointer+ for the Mac. Pointer+ changes the cursor to a circular magnifier 200 to 800 px in diameter. More info at: Pointer+ for Mac OSX. (via email)

Show #3 of the Startup Success Podcast is out. In this show I give Pat a hard time over Vista, he gives me the lowdown on PDC and Mairtini Ni Dhomhnaill gives all of us a quick intro to finance and accounting for microISVs and startups. Subscribe via Apple iTunes here.

About…

Bob Walsh is an experienced Ruby on Rails developer working as senior web developer at TheRightMargin.com. When he's not working hard at his day job, he's either building and launching http://www.solopomo.com/, amusing his cats or hanging out with his Significant Other.